Youth in Revolt: The Journals of Nick Twisp (29 page)

“Oh, he’s a doll,” assented the acne case.

Fighting a sudden impulse to gag, I departed hastily.

“Who’s that?” I heard someone ask.

“Some new kid,” a voice replied. “I hear he’s stuck-up.”

“I don’t know what for,” answered the Zit Queen. “He looks like a monkey.”

Peals of laughter followed me out of the room. Now I understand why kids bring guns to school.

7:30
P.M
. I just forked my way through another one of Lacey’s patented palate-punishing dinners. Like many young women of her generation, she harbors the illusion that human comestibles can be prepared in a microwave oven. The frozen peas were passable, but the pork chops arrived at the table looking (and tasting) like some sort of extraterrestrial life form. My hypercritical, competitive, Type A dad refused to eat them, so I was obliged to proclaim the chops “delicious” and ask for seconds. He sat there seething inwardly, smoking Marlboros and sucking up the zinfandel. I wish this modular home had a nonsmoking section. Already I can feel my lungs congealing from secondhand parental tars.

TUESDAY, October 2
— No letter from Sheeni yet. I wonder if the postal employees in Ukiah are as ruthlessly incompetent as their colleagues in Oakland. Until she writes with her address and phone number we are totally cut off. It’s all I can do to keep the panic under control.

Another depressing day at Redwood High. Being the new kid in school must be life’s dreariest role—just slightly worse than terrorist hostage. I walk through the halls smiling amiably and am met with indifference, suspicion, or overt hostility. At least the classes are easy, if uninteresting. Except for Mrs. Blandage’s French class. I’m three weeks behind and everything sounds like affected gibberish. I sit in the back of the class in a state of confused panic, my
churning mind desperately seeking a familiar linguistic handhold. I feel like I was dropped into the middle of a bad Godard film—lots of murky dialogue and no plot.

Meanwhile, with every passing minute Sheeni doubtless grows ever more fluent in this accursed tongue. Why couldn’t she aspire to emigrate to England instead of France? Or Ireland? Lots of great thinkers hang out in Dublin, I’m told. What about Australia? We could read philosophy on the beach.

8:45
P.M
. Lacey had a headache, so I was elected to make dinner. I made grilled sausage, scalloped potatoes, steamed yellow squash, and salad. Dad liked everything so much, he appointed me head chef. I get to slave over dinner every night.

“What does this position pay?” I asked uneasily.

“Room and board,” replied Dad, taking thirds of potatoes. “And free hot showers every morning.”

“Who does the dishes?” I demanded.

“Who do you think?” he replied.

I think the slave-driving creep better get ready for a run of one-dish meals.

WEDNESDAY, October 3
— No letter from Sheeni! Even Albert is depressed. He lies in the gloomy crawl-space grotto under the house and chews listlessly on a bone. The heat has everyone on edge. As I walked through town after school the sign on the bank read 107°. Perhaps it was registering my IQ. Hot weather certainly chips the edge off one’s intelligence. Redwood High’s football team (the sexually suggestive Marauding Beavers) was out practicing in full uniform. God only knows to what depths their mental abilities had plummeted. Even on a chilly day, most of those jocks barely register on the scale. The ham-handed quarterback, I’ve noticed (from reading the typo-ridden school newspaper), is named Bruno Modjaleski. I must try to find out if he is the “clumsy jock Bruno” to whom Sheeni impatiently yielded up her virginity last year.

French class remains a nightmare. The simplest Frog phrases enter my mind with great difficulty and then slip quietly out the back door while the next one is bumbling about in the foyer. Patient Mrs. Blandage is beginning to look somewhat peeved. I fear she may have me pegged for a retard. I try to concentrate, but am constantly distracted by her immense eyebrows. As big as Brillo pads, they dance up and down with each syllable. So far the only word that has stuck for good is
sourcil
.

We’re doing wrestling in gym class. Yuck. Who wants to thrash around on a smelly mat with some sweaty stranger while everyone else yells at you? Most of the guys cheat and try to knee you in the nuts when Mr. Hodgland isn’t looking. I got stuck with a kid named Dwayne who outweighed me by at least 40 pounds and had the nicest pair of tits I’ve seen since Millie Filbert got naked in the woods. He really should wear a bra. With those perky, pink nipples in my face, I had such a morbid fear of getting an erection, I let him pin me after about four seconds. Dwayne must have enjoyed it, because it took him forever to haul his steamy blubber off my flattened torso. Perhaps he was only savoring his victory.

When I got home, Lacey was doing her aerobics in the world’s smallest bikini. That’s what I call an energy efficient alternative to wasteful air conditioning. The kitchen was so oppressive I couldn’t face the stove. So I made a big plate of festive sandwiches (crunchy-style peanut butter and mixed fruit jelly). Dad took one look and left (with Lacey) for McDanold’s.

Can’t put it off any longer. I must study Frog-speak. Why couldn’t the French language have gone to a tidy grave like Latin?

THURSDAY, October 4
— No letter from Sheeni! This is getting ridiculous. I am an emotional wreck. It didn’t help that as I was sneaking a peek at the new
Hustler
this afternoon in Flampert’s variety store, I looked up to meet the withering gaze of Sheeni’s 5,000-year-old mother. The wrinkled crone was clearly shocked to see me.

“What are you doing in Ukiah, young man?” she demanded.

“I, I live here now, Mrs. Saunders.”

“Oh you do, do you?” she said menacingly. “Well, we shall just see about that!”

What is she going to do? Have me deported to Oakland?

Sheeni’s mother glanced at what I was reading. On that page, two gentlemen were pointing very large T.E.s at a lady’s shaved pudenda.

“Filth!” she exclaimed. “I might have known!”

“I, I picked it up by mistake,” I stammered, hastily returning the magazine to the shelf. “I was looking for
Boy’s Life.”

But she had already stomped off.

I only hope her behavior is a little more courteous at the wedding.

Two kids actually talked to me at school today. The first was Dwayne, who apologized again for “whomping” me “so bad” in gym class. He asked me if I wanted to eat lunch with him, but I said I was fasting for disarmament. The second was a short Chicano kid with a peculiar David Niven accent, who
congratulated me for scoring highest on the physics test. I believe he was sincere, but in this competitive age one never knows for certain. I thanked him in my best guardedly friendly manner.

Another trying day for Mrs. Blandage and her
sourcils animés
. The topic today in conversational French was the weather. We were all learning to say “Yes, how pretty is the snow on the trees in the park” (it was 103° outside). But when my turn came I got no further than
“Oui
…” before my entire consciousness froze in contemplation of those bobbing eyebrows.

Mrs. Blandage muttered what I took to be some spicy French expletives and sent me to Miss Pomdreck with a note. The latter handed me a long dull test called “Ancillary Language Cognition Aptitude Evaluation Assessment” that I had to take in study hall. Perhaps it will reveal that I am such a naturally gifted linguist I can only thrive in the most accelerated classes.

The heat wave goes on. Why does summer in Northern California always arrive in the middle of fall? The swamp cooler broke down on our modular home, so Lacey was forced by circumstances beyond her control to slip into an even skimpier bikini. How ironic that her efforts to cool off cause everyone else to heat up. I had to go immediately into my room to attend to a private matter. And all through dinner, the sweat poured off Dad in buckets. The cuisine also may have contributed to his discomfort. François made dinner and, like many sociopaths, he has a heavy hand with the cayenne pepper. Even the molded salad packed a startling wallop. Dad put out the fire with his flame retardant of choice—cheap zinfandel.

If the world can be divided into sweet drunks and mean drunks, Dad definitely belongs in the latter category. Booze steeps his innate competitiveness in a strong broth of belligerence. Or, to roll the metaphor over and examine its backside, alcohol anesthetizes Dad’s natural cowardice. All this can be reduced to a simple formula: Wine in, whine out.

“This tastes like shit!” slurred Dad.

“It’s Thai food, Dad,” I explained. “It’s supposed to be spicy.”

“Thai food!” he bellowed. “Who ever heard of Thai meat loaf!”

“It’s a synthesis of Thai and American cuisines,” I elaborated.

“You’re doing this deliberately! You’re taking expensive groceries and deliberately sabotaging them. To get out of doing your work!”

Obviously the alcohol had not entirely impaired Dad’s analytical faculties.

François decided to join in the debate. “This isn’t the Middle Ages. You can’t make me your kitchen slave!”

“That’s strike two!” rebutted Dad.

“Honey,” interjected Lacey, “Nickie’s right. He’s no cook and neither am I. You’re making a good salary. Why don’t we hire a housekeeper?”

“Hire a housekeeper!” exclaimed Dad. “Who do you think I am, the Crown Prince of Siam?”

Well, you are losing your hair, I thought.

“Oh, poo!” scoffed Lacey. “Housekeepers aren’t expensive. Up here you can get a very competent Spanish lady for practically nothing.”

“That’s just what I intend to pay,” declared Dad.

Lacey and I exchanged wondering glances. Had the cheapskate actually gone for the idea?

“But that kid’s not going to sit around here and get waited on,” added Dad, swilling the zin. “Guy, you got two days to get yourself a job or a bus ticket back to Oakland. The choice is yours.”

Wow, a choice. Can this be the thin edge of the wedge of enlightened parenting?

I doubt it.

FRIDAY, October 5
— No letter from Sheeni! One entire, excruciatingly unendurable week has now gone by since I’ve heard from My Beloved. Does she know how much she tortures me by not writing? (Yes, probably she does.)

I got a frightening shock in school today. Miss Pomdreck made me drop French class. According to the test, I have no aptitude for foreign languages.

“But I’ll study even harder!” I protested.

“Studying won’t help, Nick,” replied Miss Pomdreck. “Some people simply cannot learn other languages once they’ve acquired their birth language. It’s not a matter of intelligence or application, it’s simply the way their minds are structured. I’m afraid this test proves conclusively you exhibit all the characteristics of that syndrome.”

“But I’ve learned some words!” I exclaimed.
“Sourcil
, for example. That means eyebrow.”

“I’m sorry, Nick. Mrs. Blandage has seen your test results and insists you be transferred out of her class. I’m sure you wouldn’t wish to impede the others. Let’s see what other classes are open that period. Oh, here’s a nice one. How about wood technology?”

Swell. While Sheeni carries on intellectual discussions with affected Frogs in artsy Left Bank cafes, I can sit there mute as a fromage, whittling a stick. Perhaps I am destined to become France’s most celebrated silent woodworker.

Right before I was assigned my hand plane and doorstop-to-be lump of pine, I ate lunch with the anomalously accented Chicano kid, one of the star pupils in my erstwhile French class. He said he was sorry to hear I got booted out. His name is Vijay and it turns out he’s not Chicano at all; he’s from Maharashtra state in India. His dad is a systems analyst (computer jock) with one of the big lumber mills in town. Vijay speaks English, Hindi, Marathi, some Urdu, and now he’s quickly mastering French. Needless to say, I’m extremely jealous. Worse, his exotic accent buffs his every utterance with a fine intellectual polish. He’s been in Ukiah for nearly a year and finds it boring in the extreme.

“Pune is a great city with a lively cultural scene,” he lamented. “This place, by contrast, is a desert. I trust my candidness does not offend you, Nick.”

“Not at all,” I assured him. “I can hardly stay awake here most of the time myself.”

“The brain cries out for sustenance, but the famine is unabating. Of course, some of the girls are rather attractive.”

“Do you have a girlfriend?” I inquired.

“Not at the moment,” he admitted. “But I remain optimistic. How about you?”

“Yes, but she just transferred.”

Vijay looked shocked. “You don’t mean Sheeni Saunders? I heard she was interested in some brilliant and accomplished fellow down in the Bay Area.”

“That’s me,” I replied. “I just moved up here and then she split to Santa Cruz.”

“That sounds very much like Sheeni. So you are her new fellow. Well, I am surprised. You are not at all as I imagined.”

“Uh, why’s that?” I asked.

“To supplant the magnificent Trent one expects at least a minor deity. It is good to know that we short fellows have some appeal with the girls as well.”

“I believe I am of average height for my age,” I declared. I didn’t point out that I towered at least three inches over my diminutive lunch mate.

“That is possibly true,” he admitted. “But I believe your Sheeni dwells within a realm of superlatives, does she not?”

I had to admit she did.

“Yes, she is a remarkable girl,” he said, “a most remarkable girl.”

“I like her a lot.”

“So you should, Nick. So you should indeed!”

As we were leaving the cafeteria, Vijay handed me several pamphlets.
Despite his apparent intelligence, he is an active member of the Redwood Empire Young Republican League. I wonder if I could actually be friends with someone who holds Ronald Reagan in high regard.

After school, I dropped by the dusty offices of
Progressive Plywood
(Dad’s employer) to talk to Mr. Preston (father of despised affected twit Trent) about a position as a part-time filing and typing slave. Dad was in his tiny cubicle of an office pretending to be investigating some new lamination theories. A prim secretary showed me to the waiting room, where I leafed desultorily through back issues of you know what. After ten dreary minutes, the secretary ushered me in to meet Mr. Preston himself.